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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoChris Russell | DispatchEd Schoonover, owner of A & E Glass, covers a bullet hole with black tape at the site of a shooting at 150 E. Gay St. A Columbus police officer shot the suspect, John W. Mallett, on the street after four people were stabbed.

The mental-health problems that police say likely drove John W. Mallett to embark on a stabbing
rampage in a Downtown office building have troubled him since his teens, his father said
yesterday.

Until the attacks at the Continental Centre on Wednesday that left four people wounded and
Mallett shot by a Columbus police officer, Mallett had had no local brushes with the law, police
said. He arrived from Tennessee about a month ago to live with an aunt on the Near East Side.

Mallett, 37, does have a criminal record in Tennessee and New York, where his father said as a
teen he stabbed a boy during a fight over a girl.

“He’s been having years of problems,” said Ronald Mallett, 63, of Brooklyn. “He was always
thinking that people were out to get him, so he always wanted to arm himself.”

Police confirmed the names yesterday of the four victims of the random attack:

• Gerald Dowe Jr., 29, an employee of Miami-Jacobs Career College, where the brunt of the attack
occurred. He was treated for stab wounds and released.

• Donte’ Dunnagan, 36, a financial-aid assistant at Miami-Jacobs and part-time professional
wrestler. Police said he was in critical condition at Grant Medical Center. Dowe said the talk of
the college was that Dunnagan fought Mallett to save at least one other co-worker from being
attacked.

• Jean Michel Desir, 56, a Miami-Jacobs student studying criminal justice. Police said he was in
stable condition at Grant. “We’re Christians,” said his wife, Marie Fleurime. “I’m confident that
God will help us and we’ll be OK.”

• Jeffrey Maloon, 53, an assistant attorney general who works in the building. He was in serious
condition at Grant last night. He was alert and talking to family, according to an email sent to
colleagues.

Mallett, charged with four counts of felonious assault, was in critical condition at the Wexner
Medical Center at Ohio State University. He was shot by Officer Deborah Ayers, 39, a 15-year
veteran of the Columbus Division of Police.

Police said Mallett was off his medications when he walked into the lobby of the Continental
Centre, 150 E. Gay St., and, after stopping at the security desk, headed into the offices of
Miami-Jacobs to begin his assault.

Police said the conflicting accounts of the day’s events will take some time to sort
through.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” said Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Police Division spokesman.

Witnesses said Mallett was outside when police arrived but did not try to escape. Instead, he
seemed to be in a trance as he moved toward Ayers carrying two knives.

Ayers’ cruiser video shows her leaving her car and confronting Mallett within about 10 seconds.
She began firing while backing away from him and continued shooting even after stumbling off a
curb.

“There is no other term to describe Officer Ayers’ actions other than heroic,” acting Chief
Stephen Gammill said.

Police said they now think three victims were attacked in the school offices and one was stabbed
just outside the building. Earlier reports said some of the victims were assaulted in the
lobby.

Mallett was living with his aunt at 503 Berkeley Rd., where a woman refused to comment
yesterday. Police said the aunt called police after she discovered at 1 p.m. Wednesday that her
nephew wasn’t there and then heard of the attacks.

“At this time we believe this to be nothing but a random act,” Weiner said.

Ronald Mallett said he last spoke to his son about a month ago. But he said his son is
schizophrenic, which often made him paranoid and delusional.

John W. Mallett grew up in New York and first lived with his father after his parents split. His
mother lives in the Nashville area, and police said he spent the past 10 years there.

Court records show that Mallett was convicted of criminal trespassing in Nashville and served
three years in prison for robbery and attempted robbery in Kings County (Brooklyn), N.Y.

Mr. Mallett said his son began skipping school and acting out as a teen. He was about 17 when he
spent time in the juvenile wing of New York’s Rikers Island jail for the stabbing.

“If you talked to him, he’s very intelligent,” Mr. Mallett said. “He’ll speak right back to you
with no problems. (Early on) the family kind of thought that he was faking it because he could
always talk rationally to you.”

It eventually became clear his son was truly ill. Unable to hold down a job, he got by on
Supplemental Security Income benefits.

Mr. Mallett said his son had been told by his aunt recently that she wanted him out of her
Berkeley Road home because he was causing problems.

Of the three knives that Mallett carried on Wednesday, at least one came from her kitchen, Mr.
Mallett said.

He suspected his son was stressed by his aunt’s decision and might have gone Downtown in search
of an agency to help him find housing.

He knew of no link between his son and Miami-Jacobs.

“I’m really, really sorry about the people he hurt, and I want to offer my condolences to them,”
he said.

Relatives had tried for years to get his son help, only to feel that the courts and
mental-health system couldn’t offer any, he said.

“His problems never went away,” he said.

He said the official refrain always seemed to be, “We can’t touch him until he does
something.

“So you’re going to wait until four people get stabbed, and now what? I mean, it’s too late
now."